Instead of a tea spoon, I would just recommend bringing a normal sized spoon from your house and using that. Tea spoons are typically accurate, but since tea can sometimes be bulky, it needs to lay flat to get an accurate measurement.

Instead of a tea spoon, I now use a scale to get a completely accurate measurement, since some teas weigh more, and thus should not follow the one teaspoon rule. It has worked well for me so far.

i have a digital tea scale (that i got elsewhere) that, among other things, measures in "cupweight." so you know exactly the right amount -- i've found that actually doing 1 cpwt DOES make a great cup of tea.

the reason i went with the scale is that one measuring spoon full of silver needle is a WHOLE lot different than one measuring spoon full of, say, gunpowder. i wanted to be using the correct amount, without getting inaccurate simply because of "fluffiness." if that makes any sense.

Teatime wrote:I just ordered the digital tea scale from Upton Teas. I will add it to my functional collection of tea accessories.

Teatime

Digital scales are too cool ...I got the UTI one over a year ago and it instantly improved my tea enjoyment more than anything else I had done in the last 7 years. FYI, rightonscales.com has some really nice pocket ones for about half the price. I will get one of those some day.

But I also have my fav teaspoon that I use every day, everytime I prepare tea. It is just an old silver long handled iced tea teaspoon...but my tea session always begins with it...if I don't have it...I look til I find it...period. Fortunately, I have 6, but amazingly I have not lost one yet.

You are welcome. By the way, I have used mine on average 3-4 times per day for the last 13 months and it has never fallen out of calibration.

One recommendation though is to NEVER place leaves directly on the weighing surphase. Instead, place a small tray or a tin lid on the scale, tare it, and then place leaves in the tray or tin lid to weigh. If small leaf particles get under the weighing surphase of the scale, the weight will just "float" and you have to dislodge the particle(s) to get the scale to operate properly. Bottom line, you just do not want leaf particles to get under the scale's weighing surphase...period. This happened to me 2X and I was able to correct the problem.